Yesterday I went to one of the, if not the most breath taking dance performances I have ever seen. It was called Strong Language and performed by the amazing dancers of the Nederlands Dans Theater (Dutch Dance Theater), one of the most prestigious dance companies in the Netherlands and even the world.
I sat through the whole performance with my mouth open. I had goosebumps. I gasped for breath. I even cried at one point. It was utterly amazing and left me at a loss for words to describe it.
After it ended, my girlfriend and me found ourselves a place at the back of the lobby, away from the masses, to catch our breath and wait for the people to empty out a little before we went to get our coats.
Next to us, there was a table with refreshments where some of the dancers gathered and chatted. I watched them, wanting to thank them for the frankly world-shocking experience they’d granted me, but not daring to approach and not knowing what to say if I would. Thank them? Tell them how good they were? How deep their dancing touched me? They hear these things daily, surely? Just another fan when they’re tired and done with work. I sat and did nothing.
We were about to leave when one of the dancers met my eye and gave me this tiny, cripplingly shy smile. She looked away.
I decided then and there that I really couldn’t leave without thanking her and that, if she’d made eye contact herself, she probably (maybe, hopefully) wouldn’t mind my approaching her.
So I took my girlfriend’s hand and did just that.
The thing is, no matter how at loss for words I was, no matter how much I waved about my hands or stammered and failed to actually get anything out other than “Thank you, thank you so much!” and “It was… It was… Gods, it was…”, she was almost equally overwhelmed with gratitude.
The people who talk to them, she told me, they’re dancers on the same level as them. They’re critics and choreographers who always tell them what is wrong or what could improve. Every compliment is followed by a but. To talk to someone like me, to see how she’d impacted me was a gift to her.
We asked her to tell the others for us and ended up being dragged over to meet them instead because, she felt, they needed to hear it from us. They were as amazed and grateful as she was. Every single one of them. We had to promise to come and see them again, and let them see us again and they were as curious about us as we were about them.
And it makes sense. When we admire people so much, when they make things that are so very beautiful to us, things that we didn’t even know humans were capable of, we forget that they are human. We put them in a class of their own and don’t dare approach them. But when no one approaches them… How are they supposed to know how much of a difference they made?
So this is a plea. A plea for you to swallow your insecurities, your feelings of insignificance and inadequacy and to approach those people who inspire you and tell them. Tell them in whatever way you can and let them see you. Because they’re human like you and the only way they will likely know how special they are to you, is through your eyes.
